Country Sports Tourism Guide

In this toolkit, access key information, visitor intelligence and practical tips including:

• What are country sports and how can your business benefit?
• What’s the seasonality of country sports in Scotland?
• What are country sports worth to the Scottish economy?
• Who are the visitors, where are they from and where are they going?
• What does the country sports visitor want?

Over 270,000 trips of at least one night are made by visitors to Scotland each year for country sports. According to the Scottish Country Sports Tourism Group and Scottish Enterprise, these trips are estimated to directly contribute in excess of £155 million per year.

However it’s also acknowledged that this figure doesn’t include the ‘ripple effect’ that these visitors have on the wider economy of Scotland, which includes the domestic consumption and direct sale of game and venison, which is considered to be as much again.

Country sports are defined as:

• Legal shooting of birds or animals: avian pest/predator control, mammalian pest/predator control, driven grouse, walked-up and driven game, coastal wildfowling, inland duck and goose shooting, deer stalking, wild boar, wild goat.
• Fishing activity: game angling, coarse and sea-fishing.
• Clay pigeon shooting: shooting at special flying targets, known as clay pigeons or clay targets, with a shotgun.
• Target shooting: air gun, black powder, small bore and full bore.

Find more information on country sports tourism in Scotland here.

Check out the Scottish Association for Country Sports here.